There are many ways to construct buildings. One technique that is very popular for use in residential structures and smaller commercial buildings is a construction technique wherein a wood or metal frame is placed upon a concrete or cinder block foundation. Often, the frame is overlain with both an interior covering layer such as drywall, and an exterior covering layer. A wide variety of exterior covering layer materials can be employed including various sidings, particle board, stucco and masonry.
A highly popular construction technique includes the placement of a masonry veneer over the frame of a building to form the outside surface of the building. This masonry often takes the form of brick or stone type masonry. Masonry exteriors are highly prized, because of their durability, their structural integrity, and their low maintenance.
A building constructed in this manner usually starts with the foundation being prepared. One way in which a foundation can be prepared is to excavate an area of appropriate length, width and depth, and employ concrete forms to enclose the area. Concrete is then poured within the forms to form a slab upon which the remainder of the structure is built.
An alternative foundation creation technique constructs a foundation that is comprised of a wall. This type of foundation is normally employed when a building is built upon either a crawlspace or a basement. In this type of construction, a concrete wall is usually poured, or else one is formed by building a wall of concrete blocks. Prior to the wall being poured or the concrete blocks being stacked, the area contained within the footprint of the house is excavated down to the appropriate depth that will vary depending on whether the house is being built on a crawlspace or basement. A sill plate is then placed on the upper surface of the concrete wall, and a frame is constructed over the pit-like basement or crawlspace.
The frame portion of the structure includes floor joists that extend generally horizontally, and extend across the span of the excavated basement or crawlspace pit. Although a wide variety of floor joist can be used, preferred current practice is to employ engineered floor joists, that have an appearance similar to wooden 1-beams. A main floor decking is then placed upon the upper surface of the floor joist to form the main floor deck. An example of a preferred floor decking material is a plywood sheet. A 2″×4″ bottom plate member is usually then placed on its wider surface around the perimeter of the wall to form a perimetral bottom plate. Additional bottom plates may be placed in other areas of the house to define the placement of walls that will ultimately define the rooms of the structure.
Generally vertically extending 2″×4″ studs are then nailed to the bottom wall plate and form the wall frame members. The type of studs used for the wall frame members, and the spacing between wall frame members, along with the specifications that must be met by the other various building components discussed above are usually governed by state, local and/or federal building codes and regulations that include both many similarities, and also a high degree of variance.
The exterior of the wall of the house is formed by starting with a perimetrally disposed rim board member that often comprises a 2″×8″, 2″×10″, 2″×12″ or larger that is placed on its smaller edge and is disposed horizontally, so that for example, a 2″×8″ rim board would have an 8 inch height, a 2 inch thickness and a length of whatever distance was appropriate. The rim board will typically have an interior facing surface, and an exterior facing surface. The floor joists are nailed to the interior facing surface of the rim board, and the floor decking is coupled to the upper surface of the rim board along with the upper surface of the joists, with the upper surface of the joists preferably being flush with the upper surface of the rim board. The bottom surface of the rim board is coupled to the sill.
The upper surface of a floor decking includes the bottom frame member along with the vertical frame members.
A sheathing layer is typically comprised of a plywood sheet member, such as a ⅜″ thick piece of plywood or ½″ thick layer of plywood that is nailed to the exteriorly outer surface of the sill, rim board and frame members. The sheathing sheets are generally placed around the exterior surface of all the frame members to form something of an outer frame wall.
In a well constructed building, sheathing paper, such as TYVEK® brand sheathing paper is fixedly coupled to the exterior surface of the sheathing layer to form a moisture barrier. A masonry veneer wall is then built exteriorly of the sheathing paper. Preferably, an air space, such as a one inch air space is left between the exterior surface of the sheathing paper and the interior surface of the masonry or brick. One or more corrugated metal ties can extend between the masonry veneer layer wall and the sheathing material to help hold the masonry veneer wall in an appropriate spaced relation from the sheathing layer.
The masonry veneer is then extended around the appropriate areas of the exteriors of the house. Although many structures include exteriors that are built entirely of masonry materials, some structures include a mixture of masonry along with other materials such as aluminum siding, pressed board and the like.
As used in this application, masonry relates to a material wherein individual units are laid in and bound together by a mortar. Common materials used in masonry veneer construction include such things as brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone, cast stone, concrete block, glass block, stucco and tile. Of these various materials, the most commonly used is brick.
A brick is a block or a single unit of a ceramic material that is used in masonry construction. Bricks are typically produced in common standard sizes and in bulk quantities. They have generally been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.
Typically, bricks are made from dry earth, usually from clay-bearing subsoil. In some cases, such as adobe, the brick is merely dried. More commonly, the clay from which the brick is made is fired in a kiln of some sort to form a true ceramic. Typically, bricks include the following ingredients: silica, alumina, lime, iron oxide and magnesium.
Bricks have been used since at least the time of ancient Greece, with some bricks that have been found that date before 7500 BC. Fired bricks have been in use at least as early as 4500 BC in the Indus Valley of Pakistan and India.
One of the keys for ensuring that a brick structure will be long lasting and durable is to place the brick in the wall in a manner that avoids undue stresses being imposed on the brick that are of the type that will likely cause the brick to break or split. A brick can be split easily through the application of a point force, or a line force, such as with a chisel. To this end, one of the keys that permits masonry structures, including not only brick structures, but stone, limestone structures and the like, to exhibit such strength and durability resides in the use of the mortar that is placed between the particular masonry units. The mortar is important because it helps to spread out the load of force that is induced on the brick by the other brick units within the wall, and thus, prevents those point and line loads of the type that might cause the brick to crack or fissure.
Mortar is a workable paste that is used to bind construction masonry units together and to fill the gaps between them. Although workable while wet, mortar becomes hard when it sits and thereby results in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder such as cement or lime, and water.
In summary, it is important to disperse the loads and forces imposed upon a masonry veneer in order to ensure its longevity and stability. Unfortunately, there are certain occasions wherein a builder may wish to desire to place a point or line load upon a masonry veneer, of a type, that may cause the masonry veneer to weaken and crumble. Such occasions occur when an outside building member is coupled to the inner building frame by a connector rod, such as a nail, bolt, rod or the like.
Several different types of building structures exist that are disposed exteriorly to the masonry veneer of a building. Such structures include things such as building deck, balconies, wooden porches, staircases and the like.
Many of these external building structures must be securely coupled to the frame of the building, in order to ensure that they will remain stable positioned relative to the building, and to ensure that they will be able to bear the load that they impose on the building, along with the load that they bear. As an example, an outside wooden deck that may be coupled to the house and built exteriorly of the masonry veneer will itself impose a significant load on the structure of the building to which it is attached because of the weight of the wood and the amount of the wood necessary to create the deck. In this regard, a well-constructed wooden deck that is approximately 200 square feet in area may have a total weight of about 12,000 pounds (including live load). Although a large amount of this weight is supported by support posts that extend around the exterior perimeter of the deck, and at various interior portions of the deck, a significant amount of this weight is also borne by the building structure to which the deck is attached.
In addition to the load of the deck itself, an additional load is imposed by the weight of persons, furniture, pets, grills, fireplaces and other items that are placed upon the deck. To stabilize such a deck, and fixedly couple it to the frame of the building, builders will often couple the portion of the deck to an interior frame member of the building structure.
To couple the exterior building structure (herein, for example a wooden deck) to the building structure, the builder first installs a ledger board. A ledger board comprises a thickened board such as a 2×6 inch board, 2×8 inch board, 2×10 inch board or 2×12 inch board that is placed along the exterior surface of the masonry veneer units, and is disposed in a plane parallel generally to the rim board, and is placed at a co-equal height position as the rim board, so that a connector member such as a bolt, rod or nail that is driven through the rim board in a direction perpendicular to the major plane of the rim board will be appropriately positioned to also pass through the ledger board. Deck joists are then coupled to the ledger board so that they extend in a direction generally perpendicular to the major extent of the ledger board.
A connector extends between the rim board and the ledger board to fixedly couple and secure the ledger board to the rim board, and thereby, by extension fixedly couple the deck to the interior frame structure of the building. Because of the construction of the masonry veneer wall, a connector such as a rod that extends between the rim board and the ledger board will also pass through the sheathing, sheathing paper, one inch air space, and masonry veneer in its path between the rim board and the ledger board. In many cases, a thick carriage-type bolt is used that can be tightened to appropriately couple the ledger board to the rim board.
Although the nature of the wood from which the rim board and ledger board and sheathing board are made tend to make these devices wooden boards well suited for withstanding the forces imposed by a cylindrical connector member such as a bolt, the brick or mortar through which the bolt passes is not so well suited to absorb these forces. For that reason, it is often non-code compliant to use connector bolts that extend between the rim board and the ledger board and pass directly through the masonry veneer. As discussed above, the difficulty with the use of such a connector bolt is that the small line load created by such a connector member can deleteriously effect the mortar or brick through which it passes.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a bracket member that will enable a connector to couple an external building structure, such as a deck to a building frame member, such as a rim board and that passes through a masonry veneer that will be less likely to adversely affect the integrity of the masonry veneer through which it passes.